Tag Archives: Egypt

Oman Air is reviewing its route network with a view to further expanding its destinations in Africa. The airline already flies to Cairo in Egypt, Nairobi in Kenya, Zanzibar, Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania and on July 1st the airline launched its four times weekly service to Casablanca in Morocco. With the established Sudan diaspora in Oman, Khartoum is a strong favourite to be amongst the new additions to Oman Air’s African network in 2019. Last year Oman Air launched its four times weekly service to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya and one of its most dynamic cities with a vibrant cultural life, fabulous places to eat and exciting locations to visit. The seven times weekly service to the popular archipelago of Zanzibar has been a longstanding favourite with holidaymakers with its vibrant atmosphere and culture. Oman Air also flies seven times a week to Dar Es Salaam the largest city and economic capital of Tanzania, and East Africa’s second busiest port. The most recent addition of Casablanca in Morocco demonstrates Oman Air’s commitment to expanding the network and its focus on the African market. The keen interest already shown in the route is a positive sign for its future success. As with the majority of new routes, Oman Air is appealing to both business and tourism traffic and aims to strengthen the bilateral relations with all destinations in its growing network.

Taking two new Airbus A320 aircraft deliveries, Air Arabia has brought its total operating fleet to 53. The latest Airbus A320 arrived on schedule from the Airbus facility in Toulouse, France, marking the completion of all deliveries this year. The new A320 aircraft have gone straight into service across the airline’s over 150 destination networks served from the main carrier hubs in the UAE, Morocco and Egypt. Air Arabia added 12 new routes from its hubs in the first half of 2018. The next delivery will be Air Arabia’s first A321neo LR to join the fleet early next year. Adding the A321 to the fleet will enable the low-cost carrier to extend its fleet reach and therefore, enter new markets as well as better serve existing high-density routes. Adel Al Ali, Group Chief Executive Officer, Air Arabia, said, “The delivery of our last two aircraft for 2018 marks a significant step in the development of our fleet expansion strategy, especially as we added 12 new routes this year. We are proud to have created one of the industry’s most modern fleets through exceptional organic growth which helped us offer customers a wider range of destinations at great value.”

Egypt, UAE and Turkey have seen the greatest growth in flight bookings from travellers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in the last 12 months, according to analysis conducted by Travelport. Fastest-growing international destinations for KSA travellers booked through global distribution systems. This data is derived from Travelport’s interpretation of relevant MIDT data. It reflects bookings made in the KSA through GDS only. Additional booking will have been made directly with airlines, which may or may not also have a GDS presence. From April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, bookings made in the KSA through all global distribution systems (GDS) to Egypt increased by nearly 190,000, up 17% on the previous 12 months. Bookings to the UAE rose by over 70,000, up 13%, and to Turkey by just over 65,000, up 31%.  Global distribution systems (GDS) are vast hi-tech reservation networks that allow travel agents, travel management companies, and large corporations, among others, to search and book airline seats, hotel rooms, rental cars, and other travel-related items. Matthew Powell, Travelport’s Managing Director  for the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, said, “Growth in flight bookings tends to be driven by increased airline capacity, rises in demand from leisure trave”llers, economic and political advances, which attract more interest in trade and investment, and major construction projects that require large international labour forces. The results we’re seeing here cut across all of these.”

The first Citymax Hotel in the Egyptian city of Aswan, featuring 79 rooms equipped with modern comforts and amenities, celebrated its soft opening recently. Owned by Egypt Holland for Touristic Investments, this 4-star hotel is located in Kornish Al Nile in close proximity to Aswan’s key tourist attractions. The hotel boasts of leisure facilities including an outdoor swimming pool and cafe, sauna, jacuzzi and an all-day-dining restaurant. Decorated in contemporary style, some rooms offer beautiful views of River Nile while others overlook the city landscape.

Air Arabia, the Middle East and North Africa’s first and largest low-cost carrier (LCC), announced that starting July 4, 2017, Hargeisa will be the newest African destination to be added to its growing international network. Air Arabia entered the African market in 2004 and currently serves six destinations across Egypt, Sudan and Kenya from its main hub. The new flights to Hargeisa, Somaliland will operate twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, departing Sharjah International Airport (SHJ) at 03:45 hours and arriving at Hargeisa Egal International Airport (HGA) at 06:15 local time. The return flight will depart from Hargeisa at 06:55, landing in Sharjah at 11:25 local time.

Travellers from Arab countries account for more than one third of the total tourist traffic to Egypt in 2016, and forecasts for 2017 are positive and are in continuous growth. H.E. Yehia Rashed, Minister of Tourism in Egypt, said: “Arab tourism to Egypt in 2016 represented 36.3 percent of the total tourist traffic to Egypt, which is more than one third of the total traffic. Saudi Arabia ranked first amongst incoming Arab tourists, with a total of 507 thousand tourists visiting Egypt, followed by Jordan, with 180 thousand tourists, and Kuwait with about 150 thousand tourists and Lebanon with nearly 86 thousand. The total number of travelers from Arab countries to Egypt reached 2 million tourists in 2016, compared to 1.7 million Arab tourists in 2015, which marks an increase of 13.2 percent, whereas in the first quarter of 2017, the number of Arab tourists increased by 38.8 percent when compared to the same period last year.” The Ministry of Tourism of Egypt and Egyptian Tourism Authority announced their participation at the Arabian Travel Market, taking place in Dubai from April 24-27. The participation is in line with both of their efforts to highlight Egypt’s enormous tourism potential and focuses on the various destinations that attracts tourists from all over the world, especially Arabs. “Our participation at the Arabian Travel Markets primarily aims at engaging and communicating effectively with our partners and stakeholders in the region and to enhance the efforts to attract Arab tourists to Egypt. The Arab market represents one of the most significant markets exporting tourism to Egypt. This is due to several reasons, most importantly because of the proximity to many Arab countries and similarity of …

AccorHotels signed a hotel management agreement with Arabia Group to open Fairmont Pyramids Hotel & Residences, slated to open by 2022. The property will have 250 rooms and 200 branded residences. Spanning 20 floors, the hotel will form the highest tower in 6th of October, a city in the Giza Governorate, and will constitute the majority of the hospitality component within the upcoming Madinat A’Shamss development – a mixed-use project spanning over 56 hectares within close proximity to the Pyramids of Giza. Designed in accordance to a blend of Pharaonic and modern design aesthetics, the hotel is located just four kilometers from the Great Pyramids with unobstructed views of the wonders of the World as well as direct access to the new pyramids entrance. The hotel is only three minutes away from the new Egyptian grand museum with easy access to the new ring road connecting to the new capital city, and is also a short 15-minute drive from the new Sphinx International Airport. Sami Nasser, Chief Operating Officer, Luxury Brands, Middle East, AccorHotels, said: “We are excited to announce the addition of Fairmont Pyramids Hotels & Residences to our Egypt luxury portfolio.” He added, “This announcement further underscores the Group’s commitment to the destination and its envisioned potential, evident with our existing portfolio of luxury properties including seven operational hotels under the Fairmont, Sofitel and Sofitel Legend brands and a robust pipeline to open within the next five years.” “We look forward to playing an integral role in re-energizing the country’s tourism infrastructure,” said Frank Naboulsi, Regional Vice President and General Manager, Fairmont Nile City. “The destination has demonstrated positive growth over the past few years which has also …

Hotels.com has recently refurbished and improved the functionality of its Middle Eastern websites, in both English and Arabic, to improve both usability and performance. Hotels.com already serves millions of customers globally through 89 localised websites in 39 languages, and is continuously building its portfolio of properties with the latest hotel deals for popular destinations like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. Hotels.com offers an unsurpassed hotel booking experience and unbeatable Secret Prices to Hotels.com™ Rewards members, making it ideally positioned to cater to the hotel booking needs of the regional market. “We know that speed is important to our customers and we want to provide fastest booking experience possible in all languages on desktop and mobile. In fact, one in every three bookings on Hotels.com globally is now made on mobile. Speed and convenience are crucial to delivering unsurpassed experiences for our customers,” commented Michael Korkia, Senior Marketing Manager EMEA for the Hotels.com brand.

AccorHotels has signed four new hotel management agreements with ARCO. The new developments in Egypt’s North Coast, slated to open by 2022, include the Fairmont Fuka Bay, Swissôtel Fuka Bay, Novotel Al Alamein City, and ibis Styles Al Alamein City. The addition of these hotel projects increases AccorHotels’ operational and development pipeline to 31 hotels in Egypt. Opening in 2019, Fairmont Fuka Bay will feature 250 rooms and 150 Fairmont branded residences. The 300-room and 200-branded residences of Swissôtel Fuka Bay, anticipated to open in 2022, will also represent one of the city’s first international hospitality brands. Set to debut in 2018, the 250-room Novotel Al Alamein City will overlook the Crystal Lagoons – one of the extraordinary features of the project measuring 7,000 square meters and suited towards a range of recreational activities, including swimming and water sports. ibis Styles Al Alamein City will offer 300 rooms and is adjacent to a water park and shopping centre. The city of Al Alamein is also in proximity to popular summer destinations located by the Mediterranean Sea, including an 80 minute drive to Alexandria.

Air Arabia introduces SITA’s next-generation passenger management system to extract even greater efficiency across its operations. Air Arabia carried close to 8-million passengers in 2015, serving 101 destinations spread across the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and Europe from five hubs in the UAE, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan. SITA’s latest passenger service system will help the airline better manage the boarding of passengers across all destinations while streamlining the turnaround of the airline’s aircraft. Through the Horizon Passenger Management and Distribution portfolio, SITA will provide the airline with its latest departure control and weight and balance systems. Horizon Weight & Balance will increase fuel savings for the airline by providing full load planning capabilities, including a graphical user interface framework, for all the functionalities required to load and dispatch an aircraft. This includes all legally required documentation for both airlines and ground handlers. SITA’s Horizon  Departure Control Services (DCS) is a fully integrated multi-host system for automated check-in, boarding and load planning and has been used to check in more than 167 million passengers worldwide.